


The Dust Settles

by BiJane



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Optimism, Other, Post-Series, Season 3 Finale, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 07:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8278468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiJane/pseuds/BiJane
Summary: More than ever, Perry needed her best friend. More than ever, LaF needed theirs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, I just binged the last Act and now I wrote this and I really should sleep at some point but hey.  
> LaFerry, post-series, obvious spoiler warnings. There's a little time spent on speculating on the aftermath other characters face, but the focus is LaFerry. Can be read as romantic or platonic. Did lean towards making it more explicitly romantic, but it just didn't feel right. 
> 
> LaF copes with the loss of JP, Perry copes with returning to herself after so long, and both of them need their friend.
> 
> Enjoy!

The students of Silas covered their eyes when they left the Pit, unused to seeing the Sun after so long. Perry and Laura and LaFontaine and Carmilla and Mel and Kirsch staggered out along with them, just as unsteady, all supporting their weight on one another.

Barriers were put up. Poles and tape and fences, all blocking off the entrance to the Pit. Everyone knew all too well what was down there, and no one wanted to risk a return.

Some fled the campus. Some stuck around, with nowhere else to go; some just wanted to be sure it was safe outside.

Perry found herself at the Dean’s apartment. Her last concrete memory was of living there; she had flickers of what had happened since, a fuzzy view as though she’d lived on the far side of an unclean window, but she did what she could to ignore those thoughts.

She found her old clothes, still in the drawer where she’d left them. Who’d come to the Dean’s apartment to steal? She showered, scrubbing her skin raw, still able to feel the blood on her, before she changed.

It was good to be herself again.

LaFontaine was experimenting with eyepatches, bandages and sunglasses. Perry walked over to their side, half-collapsing on the sofa.

“LaFontaine,” Perry said.

They looked sideways to her, curious.

“I wanted to say it,” Perry said. “That’s all. It- It feels like so long since we were just…”

“It has been,” LaF said. They glanced down. “Perr, I’m sorry- I should’ve noticed that you were different, that the Dean was…”

“Don’t,” Perry said.

“I should have,” LaF said. “You had a god in your head, it’s hardly subtle. Everything was happening to you, around you, and you were acting… But I was so distracted, with JP, and- JP…”

They looked down again.

“I got you back, and I lost…”

“Nothing is your fault,” Perry said. “I don’t blame you. I couldn’t. I…”

She moved closer; LaF rested against their side. They’d been close for so long, it was hardly a new position for them. Perry let her hand drape gently over LaFontaine’s shoulders, and there was no more to say.

* * *

LaFontaine ducked under tape, and manoeuvred between obstacles and fence posts. They climbed down, wishing their glider suit hadn’t been busted. That would make the descent much easier.

Somehow, though, they made it to the bottom. They walked over stone and bodies and past tiny, fire-puffing dragon-mosquitoes, until they found white marble.

The last gate was still closed. They stood just metres in front of it, staring at the glimmers of light beyond.

“Missing someone?”

LaFontaine turned, and Mattie stepped out of the darkness. She wore the same veils, the same confident, uncaring smirk.

“Mattie,” LaF said, brittle.

“That electronic ex-vampire of yours,” Mattie said. “Is that why you’re here? You know, gate to Hell is a woeful mistranslation, there wouldn’t have been a concept of Hell for four thousand years after this all began.”

“I know,” LaF said. “It’s death. The Underworld. No judgements, no good or bad, past that is where everyone goes.”

“And you want someone back?”

“I wanted to know if I could hear him,” LaF said. “It’s quiet, now.”

“It would be, all this kerfuffle’s over,” Mattie said.

She paused.

“She’s asking if you want to play a game,” Mattie said. “She won’t go easy on you, not now. She spent the last of her mercy for Laura. But if you think you can win, you could gamble your life, against-”

“No,” LaFontaine said.

They spoke before they thought. It was a few seconds before they recovered, closing their eye, and feeling the cool, cool air.

“Carmilla had nothing,” LaFontaine said. “I’ve got- something. I’ve got more to live for, and I’ve got Perry, who’d- I can’t risk it, because it’s not my life I’d be risking. It’s Perry’s best friend, it’s- She needs me, now.”

Mattie smiled to herself, but stepped back into the darkness. LaFontaine stood where they were.

* * *

“What do you remember?”

Perry lay still, staring up at the ceiling. She never tried to remember; why would she? She’d heard the stories, and heard enough details to be sure that she didn’t want to be able to recall what the Dean had done in her body.

She still ached. Her synapses were raw, her head ached like it had been cracked open, her nerves tingled as though pulled out of a fire and dipped in ice water steaming and hissing. Pouring divinity into a human body was no small task.

Sometimes flickers appeared before her eyes, but they were just sights. Dream-sights, glimpses of what had happened.

“Not much,” Perry said.

Danny paced by the wall.

“Do you know anything she knew?”

“No,” Perry said. “There’s- I see things sometimes, but that’s it. Looking out my own eyes. I don’t have her thoughts, I don’t have any of her memories, it’s just… silent fragments.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

Danny sighed. Her pacing stopped as she reached a wall, lifting a hand to support her weight against it.

“What do you want?” Perry said.

“I want to know if there’s a way to undo what she did,” Danny said. “To go back to being- who I was, the person I could be proud of. The Summer.”

“Like Carmilla.”

“If it’s possible for her,” Danny said.

“Get- Inanna’s attention,” Perry said. “She did it.”

Maybe there was some small way for her to begin undoing the harm she’d wrought, or had been wrought using her.

“Yeah,” Danny said. She straightened. “Right. I have something to do, then.”

* * *

No one else came to the Dean’s former residence save for Perry and, eventually, LaFontaine. As night began to fall, and people began to take shelter to pray that this one would be temporary, LaFontaine found their way to Perry.

“You’re here,” Perry said. “LaFontaine, you’re-”

“I wouldn’t leave you,” LaF said. They gave a half-smile, wincing slightly, before slumping down.

Climbing was exhausting at the best of times. Climbing to and from the Underworld, with all the assorted wildlife, was a bit more than tiring.

“Carmilla and Laura left,” Perry said. “They ran out, climbing over the fences to run off into the sunset. Bob gave them a lift when they got far enough away. Danny’s off on a quest. Mel and Kirsch are trying to piece together what’s left of the Summers and Zetas. Theo’s running for his life. You don’t have to stay, not many did.”

“I’m going to,” LaF said. They hesitated, before they smiled. “Given all the weirdness at Silas, it’s probably the best place to get a laser eye.”

Despite herself, Perry chuckled.

“You don’t have any reason to-”

“I’ve got you,” LaFontaine said.

“Even after…”

“Perr,” LaF said. They shifted, to face her more fully.

Perry nearly laughed, again; LaF had scrawled a poorly-drawn eye onto their bandage, complete with a cartoon laser beam and a _pew_ sound effect. It made sombre conversation trickier. Apparently they’d forgotten they’d done it.

“You told me not to blame myself,”LaF said. “I believed you. I accept that. But you- You have to do the same. What the Dean did, it was nothing to do with you. It was all her. You weren’t involved. You didn’t let her.”

“What if I did?” Perry said.

The words fell from her far too easily. LaF hesitated; Perry hurried on.

“You know how I used to be,” Perry said. “The magic, the witchcraft, before- Inanna was a big deal. A _big_ \- In so many rituals, I called on her, I invoked her, I- I might as well have invited her. Then she chose me, out of everyone, she chose me, and I have to think…”

“Perr-“

“What if I _did_?” Perry said. “What if everything- If I’d never done those rituals, if I’d never called Inanna, maybe she’d have struggled to find a body after what happened. If she never found anyone, none of this, none of the people that died…”

“It’s _not your fault_ , Perr,” LaFontaine said. “You’re believing in the weird now, you can believe that too. Even if that’s true, and I don’t think she really needed permission, you didn’t know, so it’s not your fault.”

Silence. Perry was looking down, as much not wanting to look at LaF’s sketched eye as she was struggling to meet their gaze.

Her hands were shaking.

“I missed you, weirdo,” Perry said. “After- through everything, through the darkness, I hoped you’d be waiting for me. And you are there, you-”

LaF had focused on her. In retrospect, maybe they shouldn’t have given what was happening to Laura near them, but Perry’s thoughts didn’t linger on that. Laura had been fine.

And LaF had looked at them. After the last year, that meant so much. JP had taken so much of LaF’s time; and Perry wasn’t going to be glad he was dead, and wasn’t going to blame LaF for the time they’d spent distracted, but it was still nice. Just… nice.

“Always going to be there for you, Perr,” LaF said. “I was at the start, and I’m still going to be now. I didn’t give up on you, and I never will.”

Perry stared at their joined hands. It felt new; fresher. Maybe it was still the aftereffects of the Dean’s possession, her nerves still heightened, or maybe it was just the fact the Dean had hardly gone for such intimate contact. This was new to her body.

Such a simple touch, and they could feel LaF’s warmth. She couldn’t forget their words, either.

“Right,” Perry said, after a moment. She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and stood up. “Right. Well, the campus is a mess, so we ought to get started. Lot of work, but we can definitely tidy things up. If I’m back, I’m going to clean.”

LaF stared at her for a few seconds, as Perry kept talking, word after word falling from her lips and slowly picking up speed. Somehow, they were beginning to smile. Maybe they could even believe things would get better.

“Pave over that dreadful Pit, use some of the mined rocks to try and get the buildings back together, and then vacuum. There’s dust and soot everywhere, and…”

Because if anyone could clean up this mess, it was Perry.


End file.
